


Ad Astra Per Aspera

by SilverFliesInBlueSugar



Category: Villainous (Cartoon)
Genre: Anorexia, Anxiety, Bulimia, Confessions, Delusions, Depression, Eating Disorders, Eventual Happy Ending, Eventual Romance, Exhaustion, Fainting, Fluff and Angst, Forgiveness, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Lies, M/M, Misunderstandings, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Panic Attacks, Pining, Recovery, Self-Esteem Issues, Sick Character, Sickfic, Slow Burn, Temporarily Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-02
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-02 20:45:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19449211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverFliesInBlueSugar/pseuds/SilverFliesInBlueSugar
Summary: These breakdowns had been becoming more sporadic and violent, uncontrollable to the point that even Demencia couldn't snap him out of them anymore. And then... They just stopped. He stopped breaking down, stopped showing anything.His scientist was back to normal, except not really.





	1. Chapter 1

Dr. Flug Slys was an anomoly. Everpresent but indescrutible.

On the one hand, the human male was a genius in every academic sense of the word. Incredibly proficient in all facets of science, maths and english, he could do almost everything he put his mind to, be it inventing or researching or discovering. It was incredible.

On the other hand, he appeared oftentimes to be unbelievably emotionally obtuse.

Black Hat watched as his scientist crashed and burned more often than he didn't, holding everything in, ignoring everything, before breaking down in a morbidly fascinating show of pure anger and misery.

His breakdowns were entertaining, albeit unproductive. He often tore up the lab, shouting like an animal, which could set the inventing process back a few steps. This of course resulted in a lot of threats from Black Hat to pick his ass back up again and WORK.

These breakdowns had been becoming more sporadic and violent, uncontrollable to the point that even Demencia couldn't snap him out of them anymore. And then... They just stopped. He stopped breaking down, stopped showing anything.

His scientist was back to normal, except not really.

\---

Flug groaned as he sat up in his pod-bed, rubbing his head, already feeling a cold sweat indicating a minor sickness. His paper bag was disgustingly pressed against his forehead and pulled away from it with a wet sounding noise, falling to bits. Holding the soggy shreds of brown paper with a look of irritation on his face, he simply sighed and went to rummage through his closet for another, soon finding a replacement.

His gaze momentarily found the mirror, and he flinched, grimacing. His scarred and freckled face stared back at him, copper coloured hair obscuring his silver eyes. He hated it. Hated that even now, after years of physical (and mental) healing, the scars were still just as obvious and appearance-ruining as ever.

Shaking his head (and ignoring the sickness-borne nausea that erupted from this simple action) he pulled the bag over his head, adjusting his goggles. There. Normal.

Aside from his cold. And the fact that nothing was ever truly normal. But whatever, he was a scientist, not a godamn psychologist.

He quickly set himself to work, awaking 5.0.5 and avoiding Demencia to the best of his efforts, constantly feeling as though there were several pounds of wool pulled over his brain, muffling his thoughts and reactions.

At one point Black Hat had arrived simply to snap at him and insist he work faster, and in his haze he had entirely ignored the demon. This of course was perceived as something greviously insulting, and he only snapped out of his haze when he was sent halfway across his lab, and a shadow loomed over him.

But he brushed it off. Because he was fine.

And he always would be.

He kept this mantra up until his eventual (and inevitable) collapse.


	2. Chapter 2

"What do you mean, he's dead?" Black Hat scoffed, angered. Demencia just gave a mildly disconcerted shrug, everpresent grin still stuck on her face. He groaned, stalking past her to the lab, arriving to a locked door. Becoming more and more incensed by the second, he lashed out and the entire door was reduced merely to shrapnel as he stalked in.

And there his scientist lay face-down on the ground, looking more sickly than he ever had before.

He had shouted for the man to get up, even poked him. He remained limp.

Eventually he just rolled his eyes and crouched down, turning the man over. 5.0.5 peered in through the doorway, easily ushered in by Black Hat as he gave the scientist a once-over, noting his extremely shallow breathing and pallor. He was cold as death.

"When i say to work yourself to the bone, i didn't realize you would take it quite so literally, fool" he scoffed, spitting at 5.0.5 to retrieve some medicine and otherwise medical supplies as he carried Flug lopsidedly back to his pod-bed and dropped him in rather unceremoniously.

The man seemed to awake just a little then, goggles twitching as he began to shake. "S-sir?"

"Don't. Say anything" the villain growled, and the other man quickly snapped his mouth shut, sufficiently intimidated. The demon shook his head, leaving when he saw the bear return with several medicinal items in hand- er- paw. 5.0.5 could handle this, as he so often did.

With his back to them, he missed how Flug flinched as his experiment moved to treat him.

\---

Flug shook his head at the soup 5.0.5 was offering, uncomfortable as he moved to sit up. It had been hours since his boss had sent his pet/helper/experiment to look after him, and while the meds were helping substantially, he didn't think much of his ability to keep food down at that moment.

Not that he could ever keep much food down. But right now more than ever the thought made bile rise up in his esophagus. 5.0.5 made a concerned sounding growl but conceded and drew the soup back, placing it down on the floor. Flug felt a spell of dizziness rock him, grumbling as he rubbed his head.

"Looks like i've contracted something nasty, eh?" he mumbled miserably, shaking his head before flopping back down and curling on his side. "I'll have so much work to do when I'm better. Black Hat'll kill me" he turned to give an awkward (unseeable) smile to 5.0.5. "Thanks for the help, by the way!"

The bear saluted before lumbering out of the room. He peered after it before allowing his arm to drop over his eyes, blocking out the light.

"Eughhh" he grumbled, pain rocking him.

It was a while before he was able to stand up again, and a peer at the clock told him that he'd already whiled away several hours. Shaking his head dizzily he moved to take some of the aspirin 5.0.5 had left by his bed, before flinching at the sight of his wrist. 5.0.5 must have taken his lab coat and rubber gloves off, or perhaps Black Hat, he didn't remember. But now, his skinny little pale arms were out in the open, crisscrossing lines in the inner arms and chemical-induced scarring clear to see. Panicking, he ran to grab his coat from the rack and his gloves from the floor beside it, slipping them on before shaking his head in exasperation.

He shouldn't be so panicked - the scars (most of them) were faded to the point of being almost indistinguishable from the rest of his skin. But he still didn't really want anyone looking at them. Eugh.

Dizzy again and with rising sickness in his throat, he downed the aspirin pills as formerly intended (before his little panic) and for a moment the placebo effect let him relax slightly.

Then he jolted, frustrated. He didn't just want to lie around like a vegetable, freaking out at nothing, until he got better! He was determined to invent SOMETHING. Then Black Hat might actually see how determined and loyal he was.

And he might get to be party in squashing some more heroes. Nice. 

His glove caught against his arm and he pulled it away with a grimace, noting the cool sweat all over his body.

Stumbling to his chemical stand, he began to semi-dazedly read over what he had written down only a day or so ago. He began to slowly measure the liquids in his vials and containers, making sure to be extra careful as he balanced out all of it, and started to mix.

However, one of the more corrosive liquids had been inside a leaky flask, and he hasn't noticed until a drop fell onto his glove, searing through and onto his skin.

He immediately set the flask down, tearing off his glove and dashing to the sink to wash it off, but it was a little too late. Already the skin was stiffening up, a gross shade of white with red and all the shades inbetween in the shape of an uneven circle. And it stung as if he had been shot.

"God-damnit!" he whispered in anger, knowing he couldn't go get help to treat it, lest his boss discover he had been out of bed. And he wasn't quite yet mentally or physically ready to deal with one of Black Hat's cruel and unusual punishments. They were always creative and always just as painful and soul-sucking as the previous instance, yet never quite becoming torture in their neverending briefness.

He pulled a bandage over his new scar with the help of hid uninjured hand, the counter, his teeth and some smart thinking.

His stomach moaned and he promptly punched it.

"I'm not hungry. Or, er. I am hungry. For science!" he declared sourly under his breath, pitched voice dropping several decibles in his grim humour. He approached the offending liquid again, noting how it had been spilt in his haste to put it down and how it was now rapidly melting the counter-top.

He shook his head, pulling a spare glove over his bandaged hand and, with pliers, picked the liquid up to dispose of it, noting to himself to get more of it later to replace what he had just wasted. The dizziness from before began to come back, and he slapped himself, crumpling his paper bag as he snapped himself out of his stupor. Straightening his bag, he got back to work, starting to work on machinery along with, the wrench feeling heavier than usual in his unsteady hands.

The clock on the wall ticked on, thankfully without an invasion of any sort from his boss, 5.0.5 or Demencia, and soon he saw the sun setting through the window.

Yawning (and feeling about five times shitter than before) he took another aspirin and collapsed on his bed.

Dimly, he realized that he hadn't cleaned up the lab after working, and that the blueprints from yesterday were still scattered across the floor. Everything was a mess.

...Oh well.


End file.
